28

House of Maecenas.

views of a garden as if seen through them, probably intended to
represent the garden of Maecenas himself, as he wished it to be,
before it was actually made. The style of painting is identical with
those in the hall of Livia, at Prima Porta, in her paternal mansion
or country villa. She kept her poultry-yard at this place, which is
about six miles from Rome out of the north gate, now the Porta
del Popolo, originally the Porta Flaminia, on a hill on the southern
side of the river, in a fine situation. The paintings there also repre-
sent a garden, with birds, and flowers, and evergreens, and are among
the finest fresco paintings that we possess. Those in the house of
Maecenas are not nearly so perfect, but they appear to be by the same
artist, whose exquisite drawings of trees, and flowers, and birds
have long been celebrated. He is supposed to be Apelles, men-
tioned by Pliny0, and to have painted the beautiful series of mytho-
logical subjects in the house of Augustus and Livia on the Palatine,
excavated in 1870; and the elegant figures in the inside of the
Pyramid of Caius Cestius, good engravings of which are published in
the Appendix to the edition of Nardini, Roma Antica, 1820, having
been found in the time of Alexander VII., when the pyramid was
repaired ; also the beautiful series of small figures of animals, and
views of a villa and garden, of the same period, between the colum-
baria, in a tomb in the grounds of the Villa Pamphili Doria. These
are all of the time of Augustusp, but the only two that are identical
in style of hand are those at Prima Porta and in the house of
Maecenas. The others have a certain general resemblance, but
rather marking the period than the identical artist.
The idea that the hall in this house resembling a small theatre
was the Auditorium, or lecture-hall, is a very natural one at first
sight, and this name was given to it in the Bulletino del Municipio
Romano for 1874, by two of the leading members of the Archaeolo-
gical Commission, Signori Vespignani, the architect of the Munici-
pality, and C. L. Visconti, one of the best-informed archaeologists in
Rome. But a more careful examination of it by Herr A. Mohr, pub-
lished in the Bulletino del Institute Archeologico, April 30, 1875,
shews that the steps round the apse are not calculated to sit upon,
there is not space enough, and they are not all of the same height.
There are no windows in this hall, and the conclusion he arrives at
is, that it was a green-house for special plants, highly esteemed and
grown in terra-cotta vases (or earthenware pots), or in wooden boxes.
He mentions a water-plant noticed by Theophrastusq as cultivated
0 Plinii Hist., 1. xxxv. and xxxvi., c. 8, 10—13, 15, &c. p See Photos.,
Nos. 2696 — 2708. i Theophrastus, vi. 7, 3.